State to Audit Compton’s Schools on Meal Payments

State officials announced that they will audit the Compton Unified School District’s program for feeding low-income children in an effort to determine if the district used inflated figures in applying for state and federal reimbursements for meals.

State and federal inspectors who visited the district in December said the number of low-income meals reported at five schools may have been inflated as much as 52%.

Their report said several children apparently were counted more than once, and the district failed to provide proper documentation, such as welfare check stubs, showing that several children were from low-income families.

As a result, the state Department of Education’s audit division has been asked by the department’s Child Nutrition and Food Distribution Division to examine the district’s records starting this week.

Compton officials insisted, however, that they did not submit inflated numbers. They said the inspectors misread the computer information that the district uses to keep track of the number of children eligible to receive breakfasts and lunches free or at reduced prices.

“There are some discrepancies in their findings,” acting Supt. Elisa L. Sanchez said.

Sanchez said the district has made remarkable progress in revamping a food service program that was cited in the past for failing to provide wholesome meals and keep its records in order.

Indeed, the report indicates that school meals in Compton meet federal and state nutrition requirements.

George Nash, who runs the district’s food service program, scoffed at the report of inflated meals. “If we were doing 52% inflated, we wouldn’t have any idea where we were,” he said.

Nash cited the district’s November reimbursement check as evidence that the district is not claiming it served meals to 30,000 low-income children. The district was reimbursed $643,695 for serving 344,928 lunches and 115,278 breakfasts during the month, he said. That represents lunches for 18,154 children a day and breakfasts for 6,067, he said.

The inspectors, he said, wanted to see paper documentation, but the district has spent the past two years transferring its information to computers. The district’s computer files show that all the children counted for meal reimbursements are from low-income families, he said.

The dispute over meal counts may stem from the requirement that districts choose 3% of the low-income families at random and demand further verification. The additional documentation, such as welfare check stubs, must be kept on file in the district, Nash said.

The district had not completed the 3% sampling when the inspectors arrived, and the inspectors would not accept the computerized information as a substitute, Nash said. Since then, he added, the district has completed the required sample.

The dispute could cost the district thousands of dollars if it cannot persuade the auditors, who are expected to spend four or five days in Compton, that the computer files correctly reflect the number of children entitled to receive meals free or at reduced prices. Last year, according to state records, the district received $5.8 million in state and federal reimbursements for meals served to low-income children.

Compton will have to return money to the government if the auditors confirm that there are inflated meal counts, said Samuel L. Johnson, head of the audit section of the Department of Education. The auditors, Johnson said, intend to verify the eligibility of every child that Compton claims is deserving of a free or reduced-price meal.

The report on Compton’s food service program was compiled by inspectors from the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the Child Nutrition and Food Distribution Division in the state Department of Education. The two agencies inspect a district’s food service program every three or four years.

“We have not had a situation like this in the last four or five years where we have had to (follow up with) an audit,” said Maria Balakshin, director of the child nutrition division.

In one section of their report, the inspectors suggested that Compton’s computer files show that the district is claiming its low-income enrollment is as high as 30,000 and that some children showed up three or four times in the computer files. Total enrollment in the district, including district-run preschools, is about 28,000, according to Nash and district reports filed with the state.

Nash acknowledged that students’ names may appear more than once in the files, partly because families move often within the district, filling out new forms that are entered in the computer. But at the end of every month the district checks for duplicate welfare or Social Security numbers of students, and deletes the duplicate entries, he said.

Since about 95% of the district’s students qualify for these meals, district officials decided two years ago to provide every child a meal rather than try to sort out the few who can pay, school officials said.

But the meal count submitted to the state excludes meals served to children who are not eligible for them, officials said.

A few other districts have the same policy, Balakshin said, although Compton is the largest to do so.

School officials Sanchez and Nash said the food program improved significantly after the district hired two companies in 1987 to handle the meals. Marriott Corp. and National Business Services Enterprises Inc., a minority-owned business in Washington, formed a joint company, United Food Services, to handle the Compton contract. The company receives management fees of about $407,000, Sanchez said.

The program’s data, including inventory, has been put on computer, meals comply with federal and state nutrition standards, and the overhead has dropped, Sanchez said.